


Lean On Me

by little_alien_duck



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, I guess this is hurt/comfort?, It's not sad though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_alien_duck/pseuds/little_alien_duck
Summary: A reflection on the relationship between Kathryn Janeway and Harry Kim, set somewhere around season 3.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Harry Kim
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	Lean On Me

“Captain?” 

She didn’t respond to the question in any way except to stumble across the floor of their cell and collapse onto the bench next to him. The door clanged shut behind her and the two were alone in the dark, putrid silence. 

It had started with an away mission gone wrong, a miscommunication over subspace and a territorial boundary they hadn’t been aware of. Only Harry had been in the shuttle with the Captain. Their mission was supposed to be simple, routine. 

“Captain, are you alright?” he asked again. It would have to be Harry who made sure she was okay. There was no one else around to do it. 

He almost didn’t want to hear her answer. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, the opposite actually. On more than one occasion, he’d almost slipped up and called her “mom” on the bridge. You weren’t supposed to see your (almost) parent this way, with bloodshot eyes and a nasty purple bruise on their forehead. The Captain looked like hell between the injuries and the obvious exhaustion and the disheveled state of her ponytail. 

She had been taken from their cell several hours ago for questioning. It seemed their version of questioning included fists. Harry felt horrible just from dehydration and the stuffy stench in the air and how little sleep he’d had. He was tired before they got caught, they both were. If Harry felt horrible, he couldn’t imagine how Janeway felt.

“I’m fine, Harry.” 

Her voice was dry and croaky. It didn’t carry the same kind of easy poise it did on the bridge. Kathryn Janeway did not sound fine. 

“Right,” Harry said with just enough disbelief in his voice so she knew he wasn’t buying it, but not so much that he was directly back talking his Captain. He wasn’t Tom.

Janeway sighed. She leaned back against the grimy stone wall and gave Harry an attempt at a reassuring smile so forced it had the exact opposite effect.

Harry wanted to ask if she was hurt, if she had learned anything from them, if there was anything he could do to help her. None of it felt like the right thing to say. He wasn’t as intimidated by her as he’d been several years ago, fresh out of the Academy and so far from home, but she was still a force to be reckoned with, even captive and dejected. 

She seemed to know, just by looking at him, all the things he wasn’t asking. She’d been a scared ensign once too. 

“I’m alright, Harry. We’ll make it out of this just fine.” She laid a hand gently on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Harry just nodded. Her tone had answered all of his unspoken questions. They sat for silence stretched minutes before he asked another. 

“Do you think they’re looking for us? Voyager, I mean.”

“I’m sure of it,” the Captain answered in a raspy whisper, and Harry realized she was on the verge of unconsciousness. Their cell was miniscule. Even if she wanted to take her chances by laying on the disgusting floor, she wouldn’t have had the room to. The only option for rest was to sleep sitting upright. 

Captain Janeway’s eyes were closed; her breathing had slowed. Her head was tilted slightly to the side as it rested against the wall.

“Captain?” Harry whispered, but she didn’t respond. It was good, Harry thought. She needed the rest.

Slowly, her head tilted farther, until it came to rest on the torn shoulder of Harry’s uniform. Part of him was embarrassed. There was probably a protocol stating that this was against a rule. It certainly wasn’t professional distance. 

Captain Kathryn Janeway, their intrepid leader, who had bested Kazon sects and a rogue Cardassian, who had wrestled two crews, Starfleet and Maquis, into one family, who had kept them all alive against insurmountable odds, was asleep with her the head on Harry Kim’s shoulder. 

Harry paused for a moment, wondering what the hell he was going to do. 

Then he shifted slightly so that her neck would be at a less awkward angle. The Captain had taught him that in the Delta Quadrant there were times when you had to say screw protocol. She was the one who kept them all safe, who looked after all the misfits of her crew like they were her own children. She was the one who made Harry feel like he had a family in their lonely corner of the universe. It was the least he could do to let her lean on him as she slept.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
